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Learning and memory - week 3

Terms in this set (39)

selective attention
The controlled focus and potential switching of mental processing while inhibiting other irrelevant information
sustained attention
the ability to maintain attentional focus to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time
divided attention
Switching between multiple streams of information, or mental representations, to attend to multiple things at the same time
marketers and AIDA
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action
peacocking
someone showing off to attract attention and impress people. Like the bird renowned for attracting a mate with its bright/impressive plumage humans can actively dress in an attention-capturing manner
conspicuous consumption
Some people like to divert attention to their wealth to make it clear to others that they are financially well off.
novelty, orienting response and attention
fundamental aspect of our attentional processes. We are attracted to novelty. Novel stimuli in our environment can involuntarily capture our attention, referred to as an orienting response
evolutionary theory and covert attention
have posited that our ability to engage in covert attention serves the adaptive function of enabling humans to be better at deceiving others to help navigate the complexities of life as highly social animals.
perception and attention
Expertise in a domain helps people develop a sensitivity to patterns of meaningful information that are not available to novices
attentional bias
describes a situation in which people pay extra attention to some stimuli or some features
positivity bias
the tendency to focus heavily on a person's positive attributes when forming a perception; When we are happy in our relationships, we tend to be biased to view our partner/friend/work-colleague positively that facilitates an inclination to over-look some of the negatives that might be present
negativity bias
the tendency to focus heavily on a person's negative attributes when forming a perception
verbal shadowing
participants wear headphones with a different message played to each ear and are required to pay attention to one of the streams of audio and talk it out loud. THIS IS KNOWN AS A DICHOTIC LISTENING TASK
Attention has 2 elements to it
1. a controlled focus aspect
2. an inhibitory aspect to it.
inattentional blindness
failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere
Broadbent's Filter Model
Early-selection model
Filters message before incoming information is analyzed for meaning
Filter Model of Selective Attention
Broadbent, The general idea is that we capture a lot of information via our sensory organs (e.g., eyes and ears), and then this large amount of information gets passed via an attentional filter that filters out all unnecessary information based on perceptual characteristics. In Broadbent's model, the filter only lets through the information that is focused upon, and nothing else gets through the filter
attenuation model of attention
Anne Treisman's model of selective attention that proposes that selection occurs in two stages. In the first stage, an attenuator analyzes the incoming message and lets through the attended message—and also the unattended message, but at a lower (attenuated) strength.
so that there are potentially still some other aspects of information that are not being filtered out altogether as they are being processed implicitly in parallel to what we are consciously processing as our immediate target of attention
cocktail party effect
The tendency for people's attention to be captured/diverted on detection of something important, such as one's name, even when attention is focused on a conversational partner's words
resource model of attention
Lavie (compliments Triesmans attenuation model): states that attention is a limited resource if multiple tasks do not exceed this limit, they can be done simultaneously; if they do, then they interfere with each other and are difficult to do simultaneously THINK OF COGNITIVE LOADS!
Sustained attention to response task (SART)
A simple computerized task where participants are required to respond to a certain number or letter when it appears and not respond to other numbers or letters. When conducted over many trials this task can provide insights into people's ability to maintain sustained attention.
Vigilance decrement
the decline in performance over time for tasks that require constant attention, particularly if task is monotonous or boring
Divided attention
Simultaneously attending to multiple things at the same time. We only have limited capacity to do this effectively
multi store model of memory
The memory model that visualises memory as a system consisting of multiple memory stores through which a stream of data flows for processing.
sensory memory
the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information via sensory receptors in the memory system
iconic and echoic sensory memory
The Visual and auditory sensory memory systems, respectively. Sensory memory has the ability to register a large amount of information, although it typically decays quickly: iconic memory has an upper limit of 300 milliseconds to one second; echoic memory has a limit of two seconds.
anterograde amnesia
an inability to form new memories
retrograde amnesia
an inability to retrieve information from one's past
serial position curve
graph depicting both primacy and recency effects on people's ability to recall items on a list.

Two findings illustrate how superior performance at the end of the list (recency effect) is driven by short-term memory, and superior performance at the start of the list (primacy effect) is driven by long-term memory
STM retention time
around 18 secs on average
Capacity of STM
7 +/- 2 chunks of information
Chunking
organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically, to make them easier to memorise
Working Memory Model - Badderley
An explanation of the memory used when working on a task. Each store is qualitatively different. Focus on ideas of central executive (attention in other words) directing other components of working memory
Selective interference
People generally experience greater interference from distracting stimuli in the same modality. For example, trying to conduct two visual tasks at once, or two verbal tasks at once. Compared to conducting a task in each modality (e.g., a verbal task plus spatial/visual task) which is still a challenge, but easier to handle
declarative memory (explicit)
Long-term memories that an individual can 'declare' (consciously recall).
Two broad classes of explicit memories are semantic memory (knowledge of 'facts') and episodic memory (knowledge of specific events in time that one has personally experienced).
Two broad classes of explicit memories
1. semantic memory (knowledge of 'facts')
2. episodic memory (knowledge of specific events in time that one has personally experienced).
Non-declarative (implicit) memory
Long-term memories that an individual is not necessarily able to 'declare' (consciously recall). Three broad classes of implicit memories are priming (possessed knowledge that we are unaware of can be exhibited via priming techniques), conditioning (knowledge of associations between
Three broad classes of implicit memories
1. priming (possessed knowledge that we are unaware of can be exhibited via priming techniques),
2. conditioning (knowledge of associations between things can be learnt without conscious awareness),
3. procedural memory (action knowledge, such as how to ride a bike, can be learnt and acted upon in an automatic fashion).
Brown-Peterson Task
A simple three-letter stimulus was presented to the subject, followed by a three-digit number. Subjects were instructed first to attend to the stimulus, then to begin counting backward by threes from the number they were shown. This counting was a distracter task designed to prevent rehearsal and prove that forgetting caused by decay.
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